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Danny’s case had been able to help him. A year of intensive therapy and meds hadn’t helped him; in fact he was getting worse. At this point those pills were an excuse, a reason he didn’t have to deal with the rest of it. They kept him numb, kept him drifting in a haze that was far more comfortable than the hell going on in his body and mind. The familiar wave of anger and resentment rose up fast but she pushed it down, kept her cool.
    She glanced away from the meds into the living room, to the feature wall above the couch that she and Danny had painted together when he’d first moved in. It was covered with awards and medals from his days in the Army. The hardest one to look at was a picture of him in full dress SF uniform, his green beret tipped at an angle, a huge grin on his face. His fiancée had taken it the day before he shipped out on a nine month long deployment to Afghanistan. He’d come back changed, quieter, but nothing compared to when he’d been wounded during his third tour.
    She still remembered the blind terror she’d felt after getting the call from her father, saying Danny had been hit and no one knew how badly he’d been hurt. She’d been so grateful to see him at Walter Reed. They’d all been so optimistic, assuming he would recover fully and be his old self again. Even Danny. Instead he’d become a husk of what he’d once been, a soldier with mental and emotional scars more terrible than the ones that marked his skin.
    From his arrival at the hospital he’d driven everyone out of his life, including his sweetheart of a fiancée. Their mother had walked away sixteen years ago and made a new, less dysfunctional family with her second husband. Claire and their father were all Danny had left.
    She tried again. “Maybe we should get you out of here for a while, whaddya think? Grab a shower and we can go out to that Italian place you love.”
    He seemed to retreat further into himself at her words, whether from the meds or his depression, she couldn’t tell. “No thanks. I’m tired. Just wanna chill here.”
    He chilled all day long, every damn day, that was part of the problem. Claire let out a slow breath. She’d come to check on him; he was alive if not particularly pleasant or much to look at right now, and he’d eaten. Her duty was fulfilled. “All right then, maybe another time.”
    “Yeah.”
    They both knew it would never happen. Along with the severe depression, crippling PTSD and whatever physical discomfort he felt, it was the moral injury he’d sustained that had inflicted the most damage. Something he’d done during his last tour and hadn’t breathed a word of to anyone.
    She didn’t know whether to shake him or cry. “Okay then. See you later.” Though she didn’t feel like it she forced herself to cross the room and bend to kiss his scruffy cheek. His body odor was strong enough to make her hold her breath. “Love you.” Because she did, damn him, no matter how miserable he was to be around. For some reason she still loved the frustrating bastard he’d become. Or maybe it was because she still clung to the hope he’d get better and once again be the person she’d loved and admired her whole life.
    “Yeah. You too.”
    By the time she made it outside and stepped onto the sidewalk, a sheen of tears blurred her eyes. God help her for thinking it, but sometimes she wished that IED had killed him outright, rather than having to watch him slowly kill himself like this.
    The quiet whoosh of a window rolling down brought her head up. “Everything good?” Gage asked, leaning over to look at her through his open passenger window.
    What she wouldn’t give to talk to him right now, the way she used to. Gage understood about Danny better than anyone. She cleared her throat. “Yeah, fine. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks.”
    “No worries. G’night.” He did the window up and she didn’t look back as she rounded the hood of her SUV and climbed in. She already knew